Snakes and Ladders is the name of a board game that was invented in India. It reflects the idea that the journey through life is full of ups (ladders) and downs (snakes). It also reflects the idea of reincarnation, that life and death are linked in an eternal cycle.

Two or more players play on a square board and take turns to throw a die. Each moves a counter forward the number of spaces shown on the die. If they land at the foot of a ladder they ascend the ladder, and if they land on the head of a snake they descend the snake. The winner is the first to reach the furthest square. This version of the game is for one player.

In the Middle Ages, the seven liberal arts included the Trivium (grammar, rhetoric and logic) and the Quadrivium (arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, music).

Those wanting careers in administration devoted themselves to the study of the Trivium in the University's Faculty of Liberal Arts. After studying the Trivium, those bound for the Church entered the Faculty of Theology, those for law the Faculty of Jurisprudence. The Quadrivium was for those wishing to go into music, the exercise of arms, architecture and medecine, the last of whom were obliged to then go into the Faculty of Medicine in order to graduate as medical doctors.

Hunting is a traditional sport to seek out, and capture or kill, wild animals in the countryside. Often a pack of dogs was used to trace the scent of an animal, with hunters following on horseback. A hunter on foot might follow an animal's tracks. He might use a bow and arrow or a gun to kill his prey. Often the animal is skinned with a knife for its pelt and for food. Nowadays, there are many who believe in animal rights and want a world-wide ban on hunting; there are, however, also many who do not.

Use a ruler to measure the length, breadth or height of any object, in feet or meters. Use a scales to measure its weight, in pounds or kilogrammes. Measure temperature, in degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit, with a thermometer. Use a clock to measure the passage of time in seconds, minutes and hours. A speedometer will tell you the speed of your vehicle in miles or kilometers per hour. A global positioning system will measure your position on the Earth in degrees latitude and longitude and in height above sea-level.

An abbreviation is a single letter or short sequence of letters which in itself is not a word but which represents either a longer word or a group of words. For that reason, we may say that an abbreviation is the sign of a longer word. An acronym resembles an abbreviation. An acronym, however, is composed of the initial letters of a collocation; an abbreviation is more often composed of the initial letter or part of a single word. Generally, an abbreviation is written using small letters, an acronym in capitals. Abbreviations always end in a full stop to indicate missing letters. In the past, full stops were placed after every letter in an acronym; now, they rarely are.

Bones make up the skeleton. They are white and mostly composed of calcium. A child's bones are relatively soft and still growing. Old people's bones are more brittle and easily broken. When eating, you pick meat off a bone. An animal could choke when eating bones if one stuck in its throat. A mollusc is an animal that has a shell as an eternal skeleton. The following are made from material similar to bone: teeth, tusks, beaks, horns, hooves, claws, and nails. Because bone is hard, it can be carved into valuable and decorative things. Fossils are petrified bones.

The body has a skeleton, organs, veins and arteries, muscles, fat and skin. The skeleton supports the body. The organs are the brain, heart, lungs, kidney, liver, stomach, and intestines. We think with our brain. The heart pumps blood through the arteries and back through the veins. The blood carries nutrients and food from the stomach and oxygen from the lungs to all the cells of the body. Solid waste is expelled through the intestines, liquid waste through the bladder. Electrical signals from the brain to our muscles are transmitted by the nerves. Muscles then move our bones.

There are sixty seconds in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour, twenty four hours in a day.

The day has four parts: morning, afternoon, evening and night. The morning is the time between dawn and noon. Dawn is when the sun first appears above the horizon and casts its light. Noon is when the sun is at its highest point. Night falls when the sun sets. The moon appears at night or in the evening at some times of the year.

Before the invention of the mechanical clock, sundials showed the time during the day before nightfall, and an hourglass was used to measure hours and minutes.

There are seven days in a week and twelve months in a year. There are three hundred & sixty five days in all years except leap years. The months of September, April, June & November have thirty days. The rest have thirty one, except February which has twenty eight and a extra day in a leap year (which is called a Leap Day). The Leap Day was introduced in 46BC by Julius Caesar, who also made January the first month of the year. Before then, March was the first month.

Nowadays, "Common Era" and "Before Common Era" are terms often used for "Before Christ" and "Anno Domini" in dates.

A wealthy person has a lot of money; a poor person has very little or none. Metal coins and paper or plastic banknotes are types of money that you might have in a pocket, a purse, a wallet or the bank, but many people prefer to use a cheque or credit card.

An employer pays a wage to an employee who earns it by working in a job. A commercial business makes money by buying and selling at a profit. Banks make a profit by lending money to borrowers and charging interest on the loan, and also by investing depositors' money on their own behalf in other ways.

The type of hair we have and its colour are inherited from our parents, but we can always temporarily change its appearance. There are many hair-styles, and some are easier to maintain than others. To keep hair looking good and in good condition requires cutting, trimming, combing, washing, drying and styling. When we get older, our hair often becomes grey and thin or we lose it altogether. Some people try to disguise this using hair-dye, wigs and hair-implants, or even by shaving the head.

Men tend to go bald more than women but have more facial and body hair. Unless they want to grow a moustache, beard or sideburns, most men shave everyday. In many countries, women practice shaving their armpits, legs and sometimes pubic hair.

To set the table, first lay the tablecloth. Make sure there is a chair for every guest. Then put down the place-settings before each chair. A basic place-setting is cutlery (a knife, fork, and soup or dessert spoon), dinner plate and side-plate. Put the fork on the left, the knife on the right of the dinner plate and the soup or dessert spoon behind it. Put out glasses for water, fruit juice and other drinks. For breakfast, put out cups and saucers for tea and coffee. In the centre of the table, put the serving plates, condiments and water jugs.

Breakfast is in the morning, lunch is at noon, dinner in the evening and supper before going to bed.

Clothes fashions have changed significantly over time. Clothing materials have also changed over time from natural to synthetic: skins and fur from animals (wool from sheep, leather from cows), hemp and cotton from plants, plastics from oil. There are also big differences in what people wear depending on where they come from, what they need the clothes for, what the weather is like, what they can afford, what age they are in and what their personal taste is like.

Cultures have always influenced each other when they come into contact. Today, with more people travelling widely, there are a lot more influences on style. However, through mass-media advertising, there is also a lot of pressure to conform to certain models.

The human body is more than three-quarters liquid. Water is the thing that the body needs most,—at least four pints a day to replace water lost in sweat and urine.

In the shop, you can buy bottles of water (fizzy or still), cartons of milk (skimmed, semi-skimmed or full-fat), fruit juice, cans of fizzy drinks, packets of tea and jars of coffee (either soluble or ground). Apart from these non-alcoholic drinks are alcoholic drinks such as beer and wine (red, white, rosé or fortified) and spirits (whisky, brandy and liqueurs).

Drinks can be taken hot or cold, with or without sugar, or lemon or ice or other flavourings.

The solar system is the sun and its satellites,—that is, the collection of planets and other bodies (asteroids and comets) that each travel around the sun within their own elliptic paths (except for the planets' own satellites). Most of these satellites travel in roughly the same plane.

The Earth is the third planet of the solar system. It exists alongside seven others, namely (in order of distance from the sun): Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The majority of asteroids travel round the sun in orbits between those of Mars and Jupiter. Only the first seven planets in this list were known before the nineteenth century. Then, in 1846, Neptune was discovered. Subsequently, in the twentieth century, several large masses,—one of them being Pluto,—were discovered orbiting beyond Neptune, and in 2006 these were classified as dwarf planets.

Symbols are used on maps to indicate features of interest. On this map, it would seem that the town is a prosperous one and a popular place for tourists. It is very accessible by land, sea and air, and it has many industries and visitor attractions. These and other features suggest that the town is as important today as it was in the past.

This map does not have a scale in miles or kilometers. Having looked at the map, however, we might say that the scale is one to ten thousand.

For safety reasons, travellers on roads must obey the highway code. It regulates where traffic may go and how fast, what side of the road to drive upon, where one may stop, wait, turn, reverse or park. To qualify to drive a vehicle, every candidate is individually tested. Part of the test involves correctly identifying road signs.

The earth is a planet orbiting the sun and orbited by the moon. It has land, seas and an atmosphere. The earth is round and rotates once every twenty-four hours on an axis that running through the poles (north and south). The axis tilts at an angle of 67 degrees to the earth's plane of orbit around the sun.

Equidistant from the poles is the Equator, an imaginary line around the middle of the earth. To show position on its surface, the earth has an grid with lines of longitude running from pole to pole through the equator, and circular lines of latitude running parallel to the equator.

Signs are graphical shapes or symbols or actions or sounds which have a certain meaning. Letters, symbols and pictograms (similar to the hieroglyphics of the ancients) may be seen on a computer keyboard; many other signs are included in the fonts to be found on a computer. An accent, or diacritic, is a sign which, in Latin, is written above a letter (also below, in certain other languages). There are three Latin accents, namely those belonging also to the Greeks: the acute, grave and circumflex, placed over the vowels, and affecting sound and emphasis each in its own way. Often in dictionaries, these three extra signs are found: the macron, caron and dieresis. The macron indicates a long vowel and the caron a short one; while the dieresis divides adjoining vowels, that might otherwise be considered a diphthong, into separate syllables.

In spring, calves and lambs are born and the sheep are sheared. The farmer prepares the fields for grazing. To grow crops, he ploughs, harrows, sows seed and fertilizes. One year, he sows root crops (potato, turnip, beet, mangle, carrot, onion); the next year in the same field, he sows corn (wheat, oats, barley).
In summer, the animals are in heat. The grass and crops grow. The farmer kills the weeds. The grass is cut for silage or hay. It soon grows again for grazing. In the late summer, he cuts the corn in the cornfields and threshes it. He bags the grain to take to the mill to be ground. The corn stalks are called straw, used for cattle bedding and for thatching.
In the autumn, he harvests the root crops.
During winter, the farmer gives the stock (the cattle and sheep) hay and corn as feed. He repairs the walls, fences, hedges and out-houses.

How pleasant it is to sit in the garden at the end of a day's work and quietly admire its pathways and beds, shapes and colours. Many gardens are designed with the express purpose of being admired, and they provide a peaceful sanctuary for rest and contemplation; others are sources of food (fruit and vegetables) and even of medicinal herbs.

The gardener's time is spent in tilling and fertilising the soil and in planting, watering, weeding and pruning. Very often, the gardener must protect the seeds and plants from pests such as birds and insects and from the worst effects of very hot and very cold weather. Without constant attention, the garden would soon return to a wild state; and that is part of its beauty.

Many people like to visit the beach during the hot weather to enjoy themselves, to lie on the sand in the sun and cool-off by swimming in the sea. Children, in particular, always enjoy playing barefoot in the sand, making sandcastles with a bucket and spade; or exploring rockpools with a net to catch crabs and jellyfish and other small fish; or seeing how well they can make flat stones skim over the sea's surface.
Even in wintertime, the beach can be fun when, wrapped up warmly, you watch the waves from the stormy sea crashing upon the shore.

Note, "pede nudato" is adverbial, "pedes nudus" adjectival. When you consider the implications (the number and the use of "nudatus"—"made naked"), "pede nudato" is subtly better than "pedibus nudis", isn't it? And that lead me to consider the last ("pedes nudus") as an interesting and provocative form. I used it so that I could think about it and remember it. How subtle are the implications about what number the noun should have! Is it a wrong form? So, "she, fleet of foot", "he, strong in arm"? Do I misunderstand?

Perhaps you already know this, and perhaps this isn't what's at issue, but I believe "pedes nudus" is an example of of Synecdocical/Greek accusative, aka Accusative of Specification. So it seems to be legitimate for your purposes, as you already knew.

Just for the hell of it, I looked up ‘barefoot’ in the small dictionaries (Traupman, Cassell’s, Chambers Murray). They all give ‘nudis pedibus’ (adj & adv) or “pedibus nudis”. On the other hand, Google gives 4440 hits for “nudis pedibus”, 1340 hits for “pede nudo”, 1280 for “pedibus nudis”, 178 for “pedes nudi”, and 3 for “pede nudato” - but one of those last 3 leads to this magnificent Dictionary of Latin Phrases (English-Latin):

Thesaurus wrote:Perhaps you already know this, and perhaps this isn't what's at issue, but I believe "pedes nudus" is an example of of Synecdocical/Greek accusative, aka Accusative of Specification. So it seems to be legitimate for your purposes, as you already knew.

If I had really known that, I would have said, because that's just perfect! That's great, Thesaurus.Si id verè intellexissem, dixissem, quià tam aptum est! Benè factum, Thesaure!

The market is where you go to buy groceries and other things. Some markets are indoors, some outdoors. They consist of stalls, or small shops, where often you can buy direct from farmers and others who have themselves made what they are selling. Big supermarkets sell goods which are of a consistent standard, long shelf-life, and possibly cheaper because of volume sales. At the market, you will often find food products that are local, seasonal, individual and, although of shorter shelf-life, may often be better qualify than mass-produced ones. Of course, you may also find poor-quality products and unreliable traders. But when you get to know and trust the traders, going to the market is often a more enjoyable experience than going to the supermarket.

Young children go to a primary school, or elementary school; older children to a secondary school, or high-school; infants to kindergarten. In a boarding school, boarders lodge on school premises, going home to parents or guardians at the weekends or during the holidays. Some schools are single-sex, some mixed-sex. Pupils often wear a uniform with the school badge. Lessons (based on subject curricula) take place in the classroom, and major exams (for diplomas, say) are often held in the study hall or gymnasium. Most schools have a playground and staff-room, and many also have a library, a dinner canteen and playing fields maintained by the caretaker or janitor.

To weigh something on a mechanical balance, you put it on one pan of the weighing scales. Then, you continue to add and subtract weights to the other pan until both pans have the same weight and the scales are balanced. Because all the weights are marked, you just count what you put on. Electronic scales give the object's weight directly on a read-out panel. Scales may need to be adjusted to ensure that with the electronic scale, for instance, when no weight is placed on it, zero registers on the read-out, and in the case of the mechanical balance, when no weight is placed on the pans, that they are in equilibrium with the beam horizontal.

The seasons are those times of the year which have characteristic weather. They are caused by the tilt of the earth on its axis as it travels around the sun. In temperate regions, there are four: spring, summer, autumn and winter; elsewhere, just two—a wet and dry season in the tropics, and summer and winter only in polar regions.

In northern temperate regions, spring includes March, April and May; summer June, July and August; autumn September, October, November; and winter December, January and February. In southern temperate regions, it is the opposite. In ancient times in Europe, spring began on Candlemas (2nd February), summer on Mayday (May 1st), autumn on Lammas (August 1st) and winter on Halloween (31st October).

Weather is the condition of the atmosphere at a given place, lasting for a certain period of time. Climate describes characteristic weather patterns of many years, or centuries even. Weather is caused by changes in atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, rainfall, cloudiness, wind speed and wind direction. It is also affected on land by a place's latitude, height above sea-level and nearness to mountains and large bodies of water. Near the equator the weather changes very little.

Winter is colder than summer, and often has rain, hail and snow. Spring is the time of new growth; autumn the time when leaves fall from the trees. Storms often occur in autumn and winter. In the early morning throughout the year, when dew is on the grass, a mist often forms and soon disappears.

The road is made of earth, tar or cobblestones. Rainwater runs off the road surface into the gutter and down the drain. Directions are given on signposts along the road and distances are marked on milestones. Pedestrians walk on the pavement at the side of the road and vehicles and horse-riders travel along the central part, either on the left or the right, depending on the country. Types of vehicle include the car, van, lorry, tractor, bus, motorbike, bicycle, and horse-drawn cart.

The train travels on the railway track; the plane and helicopter in the air; the row-boat and barge on the canal; the motorboat, yacht, cargo ship and passenger-ferry at sea.

To keep healthy you must eat properly and exercise regularly. Eating contaminated food can make you sick; similarly, not properly cleaning both yourself and where you live can encourage parasites and germs. You can catch some ailments from other people or from animals. Most ailments, such as the cold or headaches, go away within a few days. Sometimes you need to see a doctor if you are in constant pain or are vomiting. You head to hospital for more serious problems. If you are ever unable to get there unassisted, or if you have been in a serious accident, you are brought there by ambulance.